You Are Enough

I had the honor of interviewing Public Speaking Confidence Coach Kenneth Kendall on my podcast The Mitch Gray Show.

During our interview, Kenneth shared empowering insight that will inspire you to know that you are enough.

Mitch- What makes a great speaker? 

Kenneth- Someone who has confidence in themselves in who they are and the message that they're delivering.

If you don't believe in yourself as a speaker, and if you don't believe in what you're saying, the audience can spot that a mile away and they will never be with you. If you believe in who you are and the message you're getting out there, that's the ticket. You can do anything at that point. I love it. I love it.

Mitch- It’s almost like confidence is this characteristic or element that actually brings together all of the underlying characteristics.  It's really a reflection of the soul.

Kenneth- Absolutely.  I love how you put that as a reflection of the soul. One of the things, one of the big things that I teach is that you, as a human being are enough how you are today, how you were yesterday and how you are tomorrow.

You're enough. You don't need to be a facsimile of who you are, a presentation version of yourself that serves no one. So if you can truly reflect yourself, reflect your soul when you're on stage giving a speech or on zoom, this is public speaking too, right?  That brings out that confidence. So, yeah, you're absolutely right.

Mitch- Let’s talk about that. The idea that you are enough. 

I'm someone who has struggled with mental health. It's that idea that I am enough or the doubt in being enough . How does someone work through that in your experience? I know we're going to talk about public speaking but as someone who stands in front of people or speaks in front of people, there's always that fine line of feeling like you are enough.

How do you navigate that within public speaking?

Kenneth- So let's take it out of the context of public speaking because this applies for any skill. Whether you are enough as a swimmer, as a cyclist, as someone who fixes roads, it doesn't matter.

I don't know if you've ever read the book the talent code by Dan Coyle. 

He was a sports writer. And what he started noticing is there's these hotspots around the world that prove we're producing a disproportionate amount of talent. He became aware of things like 'Why is this tennis camp in the middle of nowhere, Russia putting out more world champions than other places? Why is this soccer camp in Brazil putting out more players than other locations?’

So he went on a quest and discovered the training methods these folks were using. And it all has to do with myelin. What does it turn that most people might not know. It's a chemical in your brain. And what happens is this is how we form habits.

This is how we form muscle memory. The more we do something and the more we repeat something and way that this is an action, or whether this is self-talk, the more we use any neural pathway, your brain wraps myelin around it.

And it's basically like insulation. That becomes the preferred route for your thoughts. The more myelin gets wrapped around it, the faster the transmission of the electricity in that part of your brain, the more your brain wants to use that. That's how we form these habits. All this is discussed in Dan's book.

I was a professor for about a decade and I used a lot of this type of methodology to find out what people's self-talk is based on.  And then specifically in my work around public speaking, we explore things like what are the hangups you have? Before a speech are you saying something like 'this is terrible? I'm so afraid I'm going to suck. What if I mess up?’

Because that is what you're reinforcing in your brain. That's your self-talk. 

So we identify that self-talk and where are you sabotaging yourself. What I'm not doing is going back to the relationship you had with your mother when you were three. But what I can do is help you stop the habit that you formed around this.

And over our time together, we form new habits around self-talk and then we do the same with creating an engaging speech, talking with an audience, learning how to do a tennis swing, whatever it is. You start forming these new habits and by leading with those changes, your entire outlook changes your thought patterns, which changes your reality.

Mitch- There's this idea and almost permissive action that someone can take. We do know there's a reason that you've arrived at that self-talk, at that self reflection. There's also this permissive door that can help someone empower another to begin dealing with negative self-talk. And actually what we're talking about is self-awareness. 

What is one piece of advice you would like to give the readers?

Kenneth- What I would like you to take away from this, and I've mentioned it a few times, is that no matter where you are in life, no matter the struggles you've had, no matter the things that you wish you had done or wish you had accomplished, or the things by which you are measuring yourself, my friends- You are enough. You are interesting. You are talented. You are a gift to the rest of the world. 

Trust that you are enough.

To hear my full interview with Kenneth, subscribe to The Mitch Gray Show podcast: https://themitchgrayshow.fireside.fm